Spark of the Rebellion Chapter 9: A candid conversation

Adrian had slammed his fist into the kitchen countertop hard enough to rattle the cups. Intel had flooded the streets overnight. The royal heirs were missing, and whatever fragile margin of safety they’d had vanished with them. Five days had passed since Jim, Adrian, and Lena left the rock behind, and now the meeting Adrian had organized with four of his commanders he’d identified on the Crimson Pulse document had become a risk. Secure channels were no longer secure. Everything was being watched.

Jim had also familiarised himself with his new home for the coming weeks. A room with four walls, one bed, one desk, one microwave oven, and one bathroom, all of it brown, blue, or some miserable combination of the two. It looked like a room Adrian would have chosen to stay in. And the view—how could he forget the view? He sat up and opened the blinds, revealing every visceral detail of the complex’s external drainage system. Charming, he thought, before promptly closing the blinds again.

There was a knock at the door.

“You up?”

Jim sighed. “Come.”

Lena opened the door and leaned against the frame.

Jim pulled his only set of pants and shirt from behind the door, smoothed out the creases, and shoved them into the press. “News? Or have you been commanded to be a good watchdog?”

Lena folded her arms, a scowl briefly crossing her face. “Nothing, really. Other than the streets crawling with even more feds.”

“So they haven’t found them yet,” Jim said. “And Arthur is getting desperate. If Adrian is going to make a move, it needs to be soon. We need that document from the databases. Fast.”

“Why don’t we wait for this to die down?” Lena asked. “What’s the rush?”

The press pinged. Jim pulled out his clothes, wisps of steam curling into the air. “Because if Intel doesn’t find the princes and the ‘part-timer,’ Arthur will mobilise someone far worse than the usual Intel nutjobs.”

“Like?” Lena pressed.

“I don’t know,” Jim said. “But Arthur is a very influential king. His reach extends well beyond Iassor, even beyond the Belt. He’ll find someone smarter, faster, stronger—and God help us if we run into them while raiding the centre of information in Iassor.”

“You think he’d pull someone from another sector just for this?”

Jim looked at her. “Right now, Lena, Arthur isn’t a king. He’s a father who just lost his children. Children he would move mountains for.”

Lena grimaced. “Fair point.”

Jim slid his cup under the coffee machine. He gestured toward her. “Want one?” he asked, raising his voice over the grinding beans.

She lifted a hand in polite refusal. “I’m just here to keep an eye on you while Adrian’s out.”

“At least fill me in on the plan,” Jim said. “I’m helping you raid a data centre. It would be nice to know which one.”

Lena hesitated, weighing the request. Then she opened a map of Iassor, several points marked across the rock. “These are known data centres. Most are underground and require manual access. No teleportation.”

“…But?” Jim prompted.

She waved her hand. The map reduced to three markers. “These are remote base stations. They house only the teleporters. The actual data centres are in orbit.”

“Archived data,” Jim said.

“Our document should be there,” she replied.

Jim scoffed. “That’s suicide. One way in, one way out. They could have a battalion waiting for us the moment we materialise.”

“One of the commanders has three contacts in senior Intel positions,” Lena said. She closed the map and pulled up three profiles. “She’s already convinced them to organise access to the base station.”

“She’s our way in.”

Lena nodded. “Adrian’s concern is timing—and what the requirements will be.”

Jim took a sip of coffee and winced at the bitterness, quickly reaching for the sugar. “It’ll still be rough. Every data centre has a double authentication process. Even with thin security, we still have to pass it.”

“And that is?”

“Check-in at the base station. Scan and transmission. Materialise at the orbital station. Check-out. Channel integrity scan.” He ticked each step off on his fingers. “Base station’s easy. The problem is the other side. Best option is assuming the identities of the guards we neutralise and stealing their access keys. But our IDs vanish the moment we step into the teleporter.”

“We’ll be flagged at check-out,” Lena said.

Jim nodded. “The only way in is legitimate access under our names, with our biometrics.” He leaned back. “And guess who doesn’t exist?”

Lena studied him. “Based on your tone, I’m guessing you’ve tried this before.”

“Tried,” Jim said. “Lasted a couple of weeks before they sold me out.” He waved his link. “How do you think I copied the document?”

“A shitty copy,” Lena muttered.

“A copy nonetheless,” Jim shot back. “And I’d wager this same conversation is happening right now between Adrian and his four henchmen—each one a walking weapon.”

“Your point?”

“I don’t think that meeting is just about the raid,” Jim said. “If it were, he’d have no problem bringing me along. It would actually help him. Instead, you’re here watching me, which means whatever he’s discussing is something he doesn’t want me to hear.”

He paused, watching her closely. Her expression barely changed, but her arms, once folded, now rested a little closer to her holster.

Jim pressed on.

“I never bought your story that all of SEKT went on to live quiet, middle-income lives, only to be reactivated years later like some dormant parasite. Keeping thousands of rebels silent about a cause they’d die for is impossible. People talk. There would’ve been rumours, conspiracies. But there was nothing. Which leaves one conclusion: SEKT operatives—and maybe their families—were exiled somewhere outside Beltian society. Another planet, another system, an uninhabited rock. Either way, they weren’t Iassorian citizens.”

“Where are you going with this?” Lena asked.

Jim chose his words carefully. “What makes you special?”

“Special?”

“You were part of Adrian’s inner circle. A commander. The one person Arthur should’ve locked away. And yet you built a life—a political activist, a businesswoman, a loyal member of a weekly book club.” His voice hardened. “Why do you walk free? What made you stay quiet?”

Lena paused. Then she pulled a small remote from her pocket and pressed a button. The faint hum of the cameras died. Jim leaned back and opened his arms, inviting her to sit.

“Before the war,” Lena said, “Arthur’s father, Tirius, had an affair with an Iassorian commoner. I am her daughter.”

Jim stared. That made her Arthur’s stepsister. “So you have royal blood.”

She nodded. “And more. Tirius discovered something about my mother that would have changed human history. When the Belt tried to weaponise Secronium, they learned the founders had passed down their enhancements genetically. Resistance to Secronium was hereditary. My mother was a descendant.”

“The founders,” Jim said quietly. “The original colonists.”

She nodded again. “As the Belt expanded, the gene pool diluted. But the dominant trait remained.”

“So the Sec-user program…”

“Was the result of experimentation on my mother,” Lena said. “Three months after my birth, she died, succumbing to the wounds during the experimentation. I grew up in an orphanage.”

Jim exhaled slowly. “So you’re the most pure-blooded SEKT agent there ever was. And you weren’t enhanced.” His mind raced. “Then why join the Alliance?”

“When Arthur took the throne, he inherited his father’s secrets,” Lena said. “He came to the orphanage to speak with me. Offered me a place within the castle walls. Knowing what his father did made me want nothing to do with it. The Alliance gave me distance while still serving Iassor. That was before SEKT split.”

“After the war?” Jim asked.

“He spared me,” she said.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Family, I suppose. Feeling partly responsible for the atrocities his father committed.” Her mouth tightened. “He wiped my memory, though. Nice way to keep me silent.”

“All of it?”

“I don’t know. When I recovered, I had a directive to go to the Southern Outskirts. That’s where I found Adrian.”

“And you compared notes.”

She nodded. “Fragments came back. Disjointed. The same happened to him. We all carry broken memories of that massacre.”

“And you never tried to dig deeper?” Jim asked. “I find that hard to believe.”

Lena threw her hands up. “Who the fuck cared? Everyone told the same story. Life went on. There was peace. Political tensions settled.” Her voice softened. “So did I.”

Jim noticed her fingers drift toward her bare left hand. “Married?” he asked. “Once married?”

Her expression hardened. She shoved the chair back and stood. “We’re done,” she said, though her voice trembled.

“Lena, wait—”

The door slammed.

Jim swore under his breath. The question had been stupid. Whatever the answer, it wouldn’t have helped. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

Despite it all, he felt a flicker of satisfaction. Lena might be the closest thing he had to an ally. She wasn’t militant anymore—just scarred. And he’d bet the only thousand-dollar bill he owned that she was here for the same reason he was.

The truth.

Jim’s gaze hardened. The data centre was a distraction. The truth he wanted wasn’t stored in orbit—it was sitting a few doors down. Though Lena’s demeanour had softened throughout their conversation, the revelation that Lena had royal blood spelled something much larger than a revitalized rebellion and a calm, diplomatic discussion with Arthur. He sensed that Lena wanted nothing to do with the royal family and its accompanying demons but given her unique lineage, Adrian may not give her a choice.

He needed to find the missing heirs before Adrian, Lena or SEKT did.

His door swung open, Adrian standing at the door. “The ship will be ready by sundown. Prepare to leave within the hour.”

Wait? A ship? A spaceship?! What the fuck happened in that meeting?